


Immortality

by Marber312



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Alec is immortal and sometimes that's not fun, Alec is imortal and togehter with Magnus forever, Alec's thoughts about immortality, But always outliving people he has come to love is painful, Caretaker of new generations, Crying, Drabble, I'm really not good at tagging, Izzy - deceased, Jace - deceased, M/M, Mentioned Izzy - Freeform, Mourning, New York Insitiute, OCs - Freeform, Only talked about Magnus, Original Character Death(s), Sad, THERE IS NOT MUCH MALEC, They've been gone for a while, You cant win over time, because he lives forever, imortal!Alec, losing loved ones, mentioned Clary, mentioned Jace - Freeform, mentioned Simon, mostly mentioning of Magnus, new generation, protector - Freeform, the price for imortality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-05 22:37:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11587602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marber312/pseuds/Marber312
Summary: Alec was granted forever with Magnus and became imortal. Magnus warned him that loving mortals hurt but Alec hadn't been prepared for just how much it would tare at him seeing new generations grow up to grow old and disapear. He had never anticipated that forever could change so much and break his heart the way it sometimes does. Losing people are hard and it becomes harder and harder to love new people the more people he have already lost.In where Alec is immortal and takes on the role of a guardian and protector of the NY Institute until there is too many people and too many generations to protect and losing people becomes a bit too much for the family caring Alexander Lightwood. (It is sad.)





	Immortality

**Author's Note:**

> This came to be quite randomly because I started to think about Alec as imortal. At first I thought it would be lovely, but then I also have the personal perspective that being imortal might not be that fun for very long and thus this came out. It's not a fluffy cuddly being with Magnus forever but more of the backside of living forever, especially for such a family-man as Alec. It's sad.  
> Losing people are hard and it becomes harder and harder to love new people the more people he have already lost.

The girl, Savanna, had been twelve years old when he saw her cry and he had vowed to himself to never come back to the New York Institute when he left.

Alec turned around and looked up at the massive building. His eyes took in all the familiar details and he already felt how heavy the sight was. One time in his life the building had stood for protection, for legacy and family; for something happy. Now all he could see was the haunting faces he’d never see again etched into the stone walls. In the beginning it hadn’t been so difficult, it had still very much been home. Life had continued as ordinary with the additional over-the-moon-excitement he felt over the fact that he would get to spend forever with Magnus. It had been all he wanted, even though he knew it meant he’d have to suffer the loss of his siblings and family and friends one day. It felt like a different life.

He looked to Magnus, who still held his hand as firmly and as gently as he had ever since he held it for the first time. Magnus was still all he really wanted, and the only thing worth the life he’d lived. Magnus was the only thing that made losing so many even bearable.

 

With heavy steps Alec walked away from the Institute that had gone from home to a place of sorrow where his legend was painted and carved into the wooden walls. Coming back to the Institute, after the very first time he had really left, was never easy but neither was leaving. Each time he came back he saw less of the rooms themselves and more of what he had lost to the passing of centuries. Each time he left he was one memory heavier; having one reason more to flee the caging walls he had once seen as protection.

He swallowed the building lump in his throat and neutralized his face. To the people now living in the institute he was a hero, he was the stuff of legend and myth and that was what he had been there to be. He wasn’t Alec Lightwood there anymore. He hadn't been for a very long time. He was ‘the guardian’, the protector, but it was a name he could no longer carry with truth and thus he could not, with a pure conscience, stay. He had failed his name to bare wear it anymore. His heart couldn't take more loss than it already had inside those walls. 

At first he had enjoyed the title; ‘The guardian’. It felt like it meant something, like he was honoring the memory of his departed family by seeing to and guarding the next generation, and the next after that and then the next. It had hurt seeing Isabelle and Jace grow old when he stayed the same. He missed them and the emptiness after their departure had been one of the hardest things to accept about his immortality. But he had stayed in New York working in the Institute even after they were gone because in their place were their children and he couldn’t leave them. He had trained the new generations shadowhunters, taught them and fought with them. He made sure both Jace and Clary’s, and Isabelle and Simon’s children stayed safe, and when they had grown old and gotten children of their own he made sure they were safe too. He had enjoyed being the protective - and after a few years very wise – uncle and friend, until there were too many names to remember. Until his family-lines had spread too far and too wide to be able to care for them all as his protectiveness willed him to. He had enjoyed being the Institute and family guardian until he had lost too many generations to age and battles to want to learn to love another. He had enjoyed and been proud of his title until protecting and guarding so many people had become impossible and it tore him apart inside that he couldn't protect them enough. He liked it until caring about yet another person cracked his heart a little by little because he knew they would soon leave.

The longer he lived the more fragile, short lived and unaware did the people around him seem. Sometimes he wondered how Magnus had possibly fallen for such a naïve and short lived mortal as himself. But he could ask himself the same question; why did he still care so deeply for the people in the Institute? He knew that they’d be gone soon even before he met them. Yet he still did.

Magnus had warned him that love hurt but he couldn’t help it. For each new generation he formed new relationships, found new friends and new family-bonds. But they were all, one by one, severed; leaving only him standing. In the wake of the old relationships, new formed as yet another generation grew up. It felt like he only lost people when he had just started to love them. There was never enough time when he had all the time in the world.

 

Alec had left the Institute for the real first time after he saw a young man, who had been so much like himself, die on a battle field at the age of 23 with so much life left to live. He had taught the very same man almost everything he knew. Alec had trained him and had tried to teach him to follow his heart more than the rules. He had tried to provide him with just morals, a good heart and a sharp head. He had taken him under his wing as he had wished someone had done for him when he was young. Lukas Lightwood, a direct descent, sixth generation from him, Jace and Izzy, had been so much like himself it felt like looking in a mirror. Thus he had tried to make sure Lukas felt supported in a way he hadn’t until he met Magnus. So when Lukas died, far too young, a part of him died alongside him. A human part of him died seeing him lifeless and know he’d gone from living to rest forever in his mind as a mere memory. His heart could no longer take only adding people to love and then lose them. It didn’t matter if they faded away with time or was taken abruptly, he’d outlive them all no matter which. It had all been too much. He had grabbed Magnus’ hand and they had left; leaving every connections to the Institute behind them. His name had after a few years started to fade until it had been reduced to a wondered _if_ such a man ever existed. Two hundred years after that the thought that an immortal shadowhunter had stayed and kept a watching and protecting eye over them was only story. A few decades after that his name was only a myth. Many doubted he was ever real to begin with. His name was scribbled in books as a symbol, as a legendary protector. Impossible hope to cling to in prayers in whispered desperation.

There was nothing left of the man Alexander Lightwood, only the stories of who he had been when he and Magnus had gotten the news that the New York Institute was under attack. He knew he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he stayed away and let it happen so he came back to the Institute. He came with knowledge that had long ago been lost in the archives, with so many secrets lost to time he was almost looked upon as mighty as an angel. The war was far simpler than his own had been, or at least that’s what it felt like after so many years. He had noticed the star gazed looks he had gotten when he spoke and when he fought. He was a legendary hero coming alive in front of their very eyes. He had left before growing attached as soon as it was over. But he was soon beckoned back when new issues for a new generation had grown too grave for the shadowhunters to deal with themselves. It felt like he left as soon as he arrived each time and he became a story once again. When he came back to lend a helpful hand for the fourth time spread over seven hundred years he saw the first painting. _When the world beckons the guardian will answer._ Magnus had laughed, he found it fitting that his face and name had become the sign of salvation when it had once almost dishonored his entire family-line.

That time he stayed longer and that’s when he met Clara. She had been passionate and furious in everything she did and Alec had felt the resemblance to his mother and Izzy. He left the Institute but they got his number and address. He, far too soon, felt the same old protective feelings over the Institute and its habitants return and he and Magnus was once again involved in the daily happenings at the Institute. He had made friends and they seemed like his family so much he yearned for the time with them back.

He had stayed and taught and fought with them and he could almost see himself as the never fading big brother and uncle once again. The one who kept his family tree and the pure hearted shadowhunters safe from the Clave in a way he hadn’t been. His lectures and input was more valuable than any book and he enjoyed being needed. And then there was Jacob, Clara's nephew, he was blond and strong willed and it was like seeing Jace again. Alec trained him since he grew old enough to be trained and the older the boy grew the more Alec missed his own blond brother. His parbatai mark felt as hallow as it ever had, reminding him daily of what he no longer had. It was like seeing Jace stand before him and it reminded him constantly of the bond he didn’t have anymore; a bond he had never imagined living without. Jacob was nine when Savana was born and the second Alec laid his eyes on her he had fled to Magnus in their apartment and he had broken down and cried in Magnus arms. He had just seen Izzy in the small child and his heart had at once reached out and wrapped itself around her and safely tucked her in there. He had never missed his family through his life that much. The pain of not having them felt like cuts to his heart. He cried for all the names and faces of all the family he had lost through the centuries and they all hurt in their absence. He also cried because he already knew Savana and Jacob would also be just names added to list of the lost, and it would feel like losing his family all over again and there was no way to stop it. He cried because he knew they’d break his heart with their departures as he stood helpless against it. That was the price for his blessing to stay with Magnus forever. And it was the first time he truly felt it's heaviness.

He saw how Jacob cared for his little cousin. He saw it in Jacob, just as he had seen it in Jace and himself about Izzy, that she were to be protected at all costs. Which also meant teaching her to be the absolute best so nothing could get to her. He recognized the harmony between them as she grew older. Jacob trained her, encouraged her and was everything Jace had been to him when they were young and Savana gave him the balance Jacob needed to grow. Savana was fierce, strong and true in heart. She and Jacob together as a fighting unit, had the best potential he had seen in years – in centuries. Had Savana only been older he had no doubt they’d be parbatai already. They would have been eventually if they had only gotten the time. They understood each other like few others in the world did. They were as close as siblings and cared enough to never let go but wasn’t too involved to not see the other’s bullshit for what it was. It broke his heart as much as it mended it to witness because it was like seeing his own parabatai bond form. And it was also what made it hurt so much worsewhen _it_ happened _._

Savana wasn’t old enough to have make-up to smear with her tears and it made her pain so much more unbearable. She had pressed her face into his chest and gripped him as if Alec could make the pain go away; as if he could protect her from the heartless and horrid truth. She clung to him as if it would make the pain go away and he knew it wouldn’t. It never did. Losing family never stopped hurting - no matter how long ago it happened. Alec held her as she cried herself exhausted over the brother-in-all-but-blood she’d never see again. He held her as she cried over the future she’d have without a brother when she had imagined one with. She had only been twelve when her cousin died, before barely turning 20, during a mission. The parabatai she had in all but the actual rune. And he could do nothing for her pain and only held her until she fell asleep in his arms out of pure exhaustion. His own name, ‘the gurdian’, the mythical protector, whatever he had ever been called had never felt more false as then; when he had no power to take her pain filled tears away. He could only hold her as she wept, helpless and powerless, and he knew his heart had finally broken. He was supposed to protect people and all he did was lose them because he couldn’t protect them from time. He couldn’t guard them from life. He vowed then that she would be his last; he’d never return to the Institute after she was gone. He’d try his best to be the brother she had lost for as long as she lived even though he knew he could never replace Jacob. Nothing ever would. Then he’d too leave.

So Alec stayed at the Institute until they day he finally held her hand, her hair gray and her face and hands wrinkled but still smiling at him with warm eyes; eyes that hadn’t changed since she first opened them - looking so much like Izzy still - and said goodbye to her too. When her hand turned limp and slowly cooled; when he added her from people in his life to people in his memory, adding her to the never ending list of people he’d lost, he let his tears fall. The tears fell for all those he’d loved –and still loved- because no one ever stayed long enough. No mortal he ever loved would ever stay long enough. He and Magnus packed all their things and left as he had vowed that mournful day when she was twelve. He turned his head away from the Institute with tears fililng his eyes and swallowed. He had said goodbye. He would now just disapear until nothing of the myth of him remained. 

Magnus was the only reason immortality was worth the pain but it was too much to stay. There were too many people he’d lost. There were too many more to lose and his broken heart couldn’t bare another echo of the people he used to know but still loved. He walked away until even the memory of the myth about him had vanished. His heart had no more room to grieve those he’d never see again. His heart often longed for the Institute, for the protection, for the legacy and family, for something happy as it had once stood for but he knew that the second he went back it wouldn’t be his old home. Because there was no stopping time and there was a price to pay for his blessing, for his curse, for his chance to stay with Magnus forever. His protection, legacy and family turned into haunting memories, faces he wished to see but never would. That was the true price for his immortality.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not a native English speaker and it's not Beta'd so feel free to point mistakes out. It's choppy sometimes, I know. I hope you liked it anyway.


End file.
